Chicago Live! Almanac: 1986

By Rick Kogan

Happy 1986...And what January joy.

We are the Bears Shufflin' Crew Shufflin' on down, doin' it for you. We're so bad we know we're good. Blowin' your mind like we knew we would. You know we're just struttin' for fun Struttin' our stuff for everyone. We're not here to start no trouble. We're just here to do the Super Bowl Shuffle.

The most famous sports song in the city's history, no doubt. But just imagine how well we might know another tune had the Cubs not faded away in 1969. There was a song for that season, sung by members of that team: "Pennant, Pennant, Pennant Fever...It's the Cubs in Sixty-Nine"...on the legendary Chess label.

But hey/hey happy 1986...But Super Bowl joy, January 26, fades two days later, January 28, to disaster.

Any year...every year is a mix of joys and disasters, pains and pleasures, light and dark...Remember?

On Septemeber 10, 1986 the Chicago Theater reopened—movie palace reborn—and a couple of weeks later I am downtown at the corner of Randolph and State and evangelist Samuel Chambers is telling me, "You, we must all, turn from sin."

And then I am inside the United Artists Theater where less than three dozen people are sitting through "Crocodile Dundee." A few of them are dozing.

The small lobby is dominated by a candy counter and a row of video games but you can still see the Moorish influences in the architecture...and in the shadows within the house, I can see the vaulted ceiling and the balconies adorned with ornamentation that is at once beautiful and frightening.

Nearby at the Woods, the story, if not the look, is similar. There are a few more people sitting and watching "The Evil Dead," playing on a double bill with another fright film called "The Fly." (Horror/action/kung fu, that`s Randolph street`s familiar movie fare.) The lobby is less than ornate...all white bricks and harsh lighting...like a suburban theater of the 1960s.

The vibrant new life of the Chicago Theater shines in sharp contrast to the shabby existence of the other remaining Loop Popcorn Palaces. Though not as grand as the Chicago, the United Artists and the Woods, still recall, if one looks closely enough, the days when going to a movie was an adventure...when Randolph was called the Rialto of Chicago.

On a smaller scale, the United Artists and the Woods are what the Chicago was: tattered beauties, lumbering anachronisms in these small screen days. There is nothing we can do—even if we thought we should—to fight progress. There is talk—has been for years—of turning the Woods into a legitimate theater, part of a "theater-row" performing arts complex that would also include other nearby movie houses. But not the United Artists..too far gone.

And so, they go about their business, running out the string in muted majesty. The crowds get smaller, the seats more threadbare.